


And Summer Goes

by stonelions



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Het, Illustrated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-25 23:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonelions/pseuds/stonelions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer's ending. Shepard's still gone. Liara has new freckles and Kaidan might've gotten a little chubby. They catch up and share a bottle of white wine on the balcony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Summer Goes

**Author's Note:**

> (An interlude in the teen verse. Set a couple months after [Temporary Directions](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769802).)

Liara had a whole bunch of new freckles across her nose. Kaidan noticed that first, the dark blur of them, and he noticed her cautious smile second.

“Hey, Liara,” he said.

“Hello,” she replied. She stayed standing in his bedroom doorway, chewing her lip.

Kaidan realized that him being flat on his stomach in bed probably didn’t convey that he was happy to see her. “Uh, come in,” he said. He propped himself up on his elbows and grabbed his glasses off the bedside table. Once he’d shoved them on, Liara was inside with the door closed behind her. The extra freckles came into sharp focus, and they looked good on her. “How was um— Camp, how was camp?”

She’d been a counselor a couple of summers in a row now at some science camp on one of the nearby islands. She’d tried to convince him to apply with her but as soon as Kaidan found out there was swimming involved he wrote it off. The whole idea of swimsuits was something he had trouble with. He probably didn’t even own one that still fit him.

“It was good,” Liara said. She sat down in his computer chair and spun around in it. She landed facing him and put her elbows on her knees. “You should have done it, it was a lot of fun. The other counselors were very nice. Two of them were university students, actually. We all hung out after the kids went to bed and they told me about some of the classes they’re taking. I’m excited for the fall term.”

“Cool,” Kaidan said.

Liara spun around in the chair again. “I’m talking too much aren’t I,” she said. She planted her feet and he realized her toenails were painted bright blue.

“No, no… I’m sorry.” Kaidan sat up. “It’s me, I’m… I’m not holding up my end of the conversation.”  He ran his hand through his hair and it was the first time all summer he’d felt self-conscious about how long it was getting. Too long, definitely too long.

“Have you heard from Joker lately?” Liara asked.

“Yeah,” Kaidan said. “He’s uh, still in Calgary with Edi, believe it or not. He emailed me the other night.”

“You know, this will sound awful of me, but I always had this sense that Edi was…” Liara trailed off.

“Totally made up?” Kaidan said.

The corners of her mouth curled. “I was going to say ‘not as serious about him as he was about her’ but yours also works.”

The silence came back again.

“Your mom told me...you’ve been in bed all summer,” Liara said. She pulled one of her legs up and tucked her knee under her chin. Her big blue eyes were fixed right on him. They were a different blue than the eyes Kaidan missed so badly. Deeper blue; an ocean instead of the sky. “Did you ever… Have you heard anything at all?”

Kaidan bit the inside of his lip to keep from wincing but it must have hit his eyebrows, because Liara immediately looked sorry she’d asked.

“No,” he said.

Shepard had left, and Shepard had stayed gone. Kaidan still dialed his old number sometimes, to hear that it wasn’t in service. One of those bad habits he knew was bad but couldn’t break, like eating a whole bag of animal cookies in one sitting and then falling asleep on the couch with his laptop still propped on his stomach.

“Kaidan, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.” Liara got out of the chair and walked over to the bed. She sat down next to him and leaned back on her arms. She looked up through the skylight, like she’d always done when they were younger. They used to lie side by side and watch the clouds, call out what they saw in the shapes, before something like that had to mean anything. “Your mom asked me to cheer you up, but obviously I was a poor choice for the job.”

“Liara, it’s…” Kaidan licked his lips. He wasn’t over what had happened at graduation, but the weeks had passed by all the same. Shepard had disappeared and he’d stayed gone and all it meant was that Kaidan was confused and sad and spending a lot of time alone. Like he’d known all along he would be when Shepard eventually wised up and dropped him. The literal departure had been unexpected, but that was life for you. Always finding new ways to punch you in the gut. He sighed. “It’s okay,” Kaidan said. “I’m doing okay.”

Liara nodded. Her hair was longer too, pinned aside in a messy braid and tied with one of those millions of little black hair elastics she seemed to leave like a wake behind her. Those and bobby pins; telltale signs that a wild Liara was nearby. “Well that’s good,” she said.

They sat quietly for a minute. They knew one another too well for it to be awkward.

“Do you want to go for a walk or something?” Liara asked.

Kaidan sighed again, before he remembered he’d just done that. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Just…let me put some real person clothes on and I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Liara hopped off the bed and straightened her shorts. They were fitted, pale blue denim, cuffed above the knee. “Okay,” she said.

Kaidan managed to find one pair of cargo shorts that weren’t too too tight, which was the best he could hope for under the circumstances, and he made an effort to tame his hair a little bit. It didn’t get him far. The curls only got more unruly the longer it grew, so he was screwed until he cut it.

Downstairs Liara and Mom were in the kitchen, laughing about something.

“It lives,” Mom said when Kaidan walked into the room. She ruffled his hair and undid any of the good he’d managed to do. “Here,” she handed him a twenty. “Go have fun you guys. School starts in less than two weeks.”

“I am so excited,” Liara said. She was serious. “I really can’t wait. I keep looking at my timetable and daydreaming about it.”

“Kids these days,” Mom said. She’d opened the fridge and was pulling things out of it. Ingredients for a potato salad, it looked like. “Dinner’s at six. A few people are coming and I’m firing up the barbecue, so you two should make an appearance, got it?”

“Got it,” Kaidan said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Alenko,” Liara said.

They left through the front door and started walking towards Broadway, shoulders bumping, Liara looking summery in her fluttery tank top. Pink shoes, she was wearing pink shoes.

There was something comfortable about being with her, even when they weren’t talking. Not that they weren’t talking. They were, a bit. Liara was doing the lion’s share of it, telling him about camp, about her predictions for her fall classes, her predictions for _his_ classes. But somewhere in the midst of that Kaidan realized he’d missed her. The past year he’d been so wrapped up in Shepard that other things had slid through the cracks. It dawned on him all of a sudden, like a flipped switch: he’d been a lousy friend to her for most of the twelfth grade, and the guilt was enough to stop him cold.

“What is it?” She asked.

He shook his head. They were standing outside a café that did good iced coffee and gelato. “Nothing,” he said. “You wanna get something? My mom’s buying.” He nodded into the shop.

She shrugged, smiled. “Sure.”

They sat on the patio and shared each other’s gelato. “My combination is experimental,” Liara said. “So proceed carefully.”

She’d chosen lemon zest and the complicated middle eastern flavor that Kaidan’s mom could never get enough of. Kaidan stuck to chocolate and praline. It all tasted sweet and delicious in the end.

The sun felt good where it was hitting Kaidan’s arms. He’d started to get a tan in May and June, but hiding under his covers for the entirety of July had sapped it. Not like Liara’s freckles. They were the opposite of sapped.

“It’s pretty nice out today, huh?” Kaidan said.

Liara nodded. “We’ve been lucky this year. It only rained a few times while I was away.” She licked the last bit of gelato off her spoon. “How was Whistler?”

Kaidan didn’t really know. He’d spent most of his time there face down in bed too. Though the evenings on the balcony had been nice. Warm. Good beer weather.

“It was all right, I guess,” he said. “Kinda quiet.” Quiet enough that all his memories of late night phone calls to Shepard were loud, too loud sometimes. Loud enough that he’d gone for more than a few walks down into the village at two a.m. and purposely left his cellphone behind on the bedside table. He’d even broken the habit of checking it when he got back. One bad habit out of a million, but at least he’d done it.

Liara looked like she could tell what he was thinking about, so he stopped.

“This weather seems to make everybody more amiable,” she said.

“Yeah,” Kaidan agreed. Vancouverites tended to crawl out of their aloof, miserable shells when the sun was shining, and only when the sun was shining. “We should probably take advantage of it somehow. It’ll be gone soon.”

Liara nodded. “You want to go watch a movie in your basement?”

They both laughed. “Yeah,” Kaidan said. “Definitely.”

They walked back to his house, sun on their shoulders, sweat in their hairlines. There was a slight breeze so it turned out to be more pleasant than unpleasant.

In the basement, Liara picked a zombie movie off the shelf and promised she would suspend her disbelief for a couple of hours. At least until dinner. She almost made it, too, but there was one big arterial spray that set her off—”That’s an anatomical impossibility!”—and then Mom was calling them upstairs anyway.

“Here,” Mom handed them both glasses of white wine. “One drink with the grown-ups, and then you’re allowed to do the teenage vanishing act, okay?”

They sat together on the back patio and listened in on the tipsy adults. Nobody bothered them beyond a few hellos and how are yous and the age old question: are you excited for school? Otherwise, they blended in with the background.

“Do you even like white wine?” Kaidan asked Liara.

“This one is nice,” she said, and took another big sip. Her parents had given her the okay to drink at Kaidan’s house when they were sixteen. They’d arranged it with his mom, even. Something about ‘if you’re going to drink, we’d rather you did it where we know you’re safe’ or another similar rational parental reason.

When their wine was gone the food was ready, so they both loaded up plates. Kaidan waited until the kitchen was empty, then he shot a glance at Liara. He put his pointer finger to his lips, opened the fridge, and grabbed the the bottle of white wine. He nodded to Liara to take their empty glasses and head for his bedroom.

They made it, undetected.

“Your mom won’t get mad?” Liara’s cheeks were already a bit pink from the one glass. Or maybe just from the idea of taking a whole bottle for themselves.

“Nah.” They sat down on the floor with their plates in their laps, and Kaidan poured them both more wine.

“Your mother is truly amazing,” Liara said. “She does everything. This potato salad is delightful.”

Delightful. Liara had always picked her words for maximum impact. “Yeah,” Kaidan said. He would probably finish the leftovers later, if there were any. “I lucked out, being her kid.” He meant it, even if it did sound like sarcasm. Liara could tell he was sincere because she’d always been able to. Sincerity was the expectation between them most of the time.  

When they finished eating they stacked their empty plates by the door and went out onto Kaidan’s balcony with the rest of the wine. The patio party below filtered up to them in waves of laughs, relaxed chatter, riffs of Bob Marley because Mom always put that one album on at summer barbecues. Kaidan and Liara sat with their elbows bumping, way above all that, with their backs against the wall of the house in the evening shade of the tree.

Shepard’s tree.

Kaidan had to stop thinking about it. “I like your nails,” he said, tapping the side of his foot against Liara’s. “Good colour.”

She wiggled her toes. “Thanks.”

“Have you seen Garrus much?” Kaidan asked.

Liara tucked her knees up and leaned on them. “Not a lot, no. Not since Shepard…”

They met eyes, then looked away from one another. It was a stupid question, and Kaidan felt stupid for asking it. He reached for the wine and split what was left of it between them.

It had been a weird year. Probably the weirdest year of his life. And this summer was supposed to be his last summer, the last official summer of pretending to be a kid before you became an actual person, a university student. He’d spent a couple bad weeks crying into his folded elbows, grasping for a reason, some stupid thing he must’ve done to make Shepard leave, but he couldn’t figure it out.

If Shepard was a class, he’d fail it. He had failed it. Kaidan had gotten an F in Shepard, and that still hurt.

“Hey, Liara, I’m… I’m sorry I haven’t really been so great to you the past while,” he said. He was staring into the bottom of his glass. “It’s just been kind of a messed up time.”

Liara turned her head to look at him. “It’s fine,” she said. “You were preoccupied. It’s okay.”

“No, I really… I really feel like a dick about it. You’ve been my friend for so long and I just kind of…stopped.” He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. “Because I was so hung up on Shepard, everything else just stopped.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, under his glasses.

“Kaidan.” Liara put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. I understand why.” She put her empty wine glass down and leaned on him, let her arms slide around his arm. “Though, to be honest…I did miss you.”

He turned his head until his cheek was pressed against her hair. “I missed you, too,” he said. He needed to shave. He had enough stubble that it was catching like Velcro.

The adults below them had started to sing along with the Bob Marley. Somebody was going to light a joint any minute, if Kaidan knew his mother’s friends. A lot of old hippies, when you got right down to it.

“You wanna go back inside?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Liara said. “I have to pee anyway.”

Kaidan snorted a laugh.

When they stood up, it was apparent they were both a little drunk. Liara ducked out to use the washroom and Kaidan flopped back onto the bed, one arm over his stomach. He took his glasses off and tossed them onto the bedside table. His shorts had been tight before dinner and now they were definitely too tight. Lying down made it more bearable.

Liara came back a minute later and closed his bedroom door again. “Shove over,” she said.

Kaidan did, and she laid down next to him. Shoulder to shoulder, staring out the skylight. There were no clouds to play name the shapes with, though. Not today. Just the fading remains of a summer blue sky drifting into evening. A crow flew through the frame, a black dart there and gone in a flash.

“Remember that time we climbed up on the roof?” Liara said.

“Yeah. We were trying to see the fireworks, right?” Kaidan did remember. “My mom was _so_ mad.”

“I’m still slightly in awe that she didn’t murder us both.”

“It’s like when we thought we’d jump out your bedroom window onto the trampoline, using umbrellas,” Kaidan said. He laughed, his embarrassed laugh. “We, uh…we were pretty dumb back then, huh?”

Liara’s ankle brushed against his. “I still think those calculations were sound,” she said.

They were both giggling.

And then all at once she slung an arm across his chest and buried her nose into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry you’ve had such a difficult time lately,” she whispered. “You look sad. I wish there was some way I could help.”

He turned his head until his nose was touching her hair again. “This helps,” he said. He brought his arm up and knit their fingers together. “Really.”

“Yeah?” She squeezed his hand.

“Yeah.” He squeezed back. Then he shifted, because the shorts were still digging into his sides. “And uh...thanks,” he said. “For not...bringing up how fat I’ve gotten.”

She laughed, a surprised little laugh. “Kaidan, stop it,” she said into his shoulder. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s...pretty bad,” he said. All he could do was laugh about it and hope she would too.

She didn’t let him down. “You’ve always had a little tummy,” she said.

“Yeah, well...” He sighed. “Now I guess I’ve got a bigger one.”

She slid her hand out of his and put it on his stomach. “I think it’s cute,” she said. “You’re cute.”

He smiled into her hair, turned just enough to rub her arm with his left hand. “You’re cute too,” he told her.

Nothing happened for a minute. They lay there, air moving in and out of their chests. Finally Liara hooked her leg over Kaidan’s and he shifted his arm up and under her head, and then she was lying half on top of him.

The tips of their noses touched.

Kaidan sucked in a sharp breath. “This is a bad idea, isn’t it,” he mumbled, voice husky.

“Seems statistically likely,” Liara said.

“If I kiss you will you just...pretend I didn’t bring it up, then?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

So he kissed her. She kissed him back. Her lips were soft and her tongue was shy, just barely reaching to dot against his. He brought a hand up to touch the side of one of her breasts with his fingertips, and she kissed him a little rougher. She paused, let the ends of their noses touch again. She shifted herself further on top of him.

“Where’s... Where are you down there, I don’t want to...hurt anything,” she said. Her fingers twitched on his stomach, like she was asking permission to find out for herself.

“Here,” Kaidan said. He covered his half-hard dick with his hand, and she covered his hand with hers. It moved away after a second though, and Kaidan felt her popping his fly, working the zipper down. He sighed his relief and rubbed himself a few times, reached into his briefs to rearrange things for a good grind. Then he pulled her the rest of the way on top of him, let her leg settle between his, then he pressed his dick into her hip and his thigh between her legs.

“That gonna be enough for you?” he asked.

She slowly rolled her pelvis, and Kaidan could feel the heat of her on his thigh, that little bit of give, even through their clothes. She made a noise in her throat and Kaidan answered it with his own.

“Mmhm,” she said, as her hips rocked down against his.

“Okay,” he said. His voice was shaky, so he kissed her again. She rocked her hips down into him and he bucked his up into her and they breathed little sighs to each other. Liara set the rhythm and Kaidan slid his hands up and down her back, then over her ass. He wished he had a better angle for touching her breasts. They were forced against him but he wanted to palm them, test how they felt in his hands.

He bent his knee to bring his thigh further between her legs and she inhaled. “That better?” he asked.

She nodded. She shifted side to side and ground harder against him. Then she reached under his cargo shorts and held him through his briefs. His tip was already sticky and the extra pressure made him moan. Between her hand and the weight of her and the swell of his own belly, Kaidan was done for. He tried to stop himself but it felt too good to be touched, too good to have that warmth on his thigh. His breath caught in a hitch and he came after only a few more thrusts, his nose sucking in deep breaths of her hair. She smelled like blueberries and sunscreen.

“Sorry,” he said. He tensed his leg. “Here, what do you…need from me?” He was willing to offer himself up however he could, ready to touch her if she wanted him to.

She just shook her head and kissed him and pressed herself back harder into his thigh. He held her until she seemed to find the spot she needed, her body suddenly speeding up and going tense. Her knees were digging hard into the mattress and she was panting. He felt her snap tight, and she bit her lip and then let out a breathy noise. Her hips settled into a slow roll after that, and he knew she’d managed to come. That or she’d given up on trying.

Something about the way her pupils were the size of dimes when she looked at him a few seconds later told him she’d come. The black of them was huge; it filled up almost her whole iris. Kaidan ran his fingers through her hair and she did the same to him.

They lay there for several minutes, not moving. When Kaidan heard footsteps in the hall he remembered that his door wasn’t locked. Fortunately the steps passed by—twice—and he figured it was just Mom going for her stash. She always saved it for parties and ended up giving most of it away.

Liara had heard it too, and he could feel her poised to make a quick slide off him.

Kaidan touched her ribs. “I’m gonna, um...”

She nodded; he didn’t have to finish saying it.

“You can stay put, though,” he said, rubbing her arm. They pulled apart, and he got out of bed and grabbed a pair of boxers from his closet on the way to the bathroom. He’d change in there.

When he went to tug his shorts off he noticed there was a slight damp spot on his thigh where Liara had been wet all the way through her jeans. He touched it because he’d been too chicken to actually touch her. Something about that, the fact that she’d been that wet just grinding against him, was pretty hot.

Some of the wine had worked through his system so he took care of that, then brushed his teeth too. It was early, but it felt late. The boxers he’d pulled on were more forgiving to his stomach than the shorts, though even they were starting to get snug. Too many beers on the balcony.

He wasn’t sure whether to lock his door or not when he came back into the bedroom. Maybe not, in case Liara was ready to leave. She was still there, though, curled up on his side of the mattress. He crawled back in next to her and she pulled him close and he felt dumb for not turning the bolt on his door.

She planted her hand on him and rubbed the curve where his belly met his hipbone. They kissed a little bit but didn’t talk. It felt like hours were passing.

“I suppose I should go home,” she said. The room had finally gotten fully dark, and there was a star visible in the skylight above them.

Kaidan licked his lips. They were swollen from kissing. “You don’t... You don’t have to,” he said.

She sighed. “I should, though.” She was already sitting. Already crawling over him and shuffling off the edge of the bed.

Kaidan’s stomach dropped. He’d been right. It was a dumb idea. They shouldn’t have done it.

“Hey.” Liara’s voice was rough but still chipper. Hopeful, even. “I’m going out to the university bookstore tomorrow, to buy my texts,” she said. She stretched, then stood up. “Want to come with me?”

He did still need to buy his textbooks. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Just...text me when you want to go?”

“Okay,” she said. “See you tomorrow.” Even in the dark, he could tell she was smiling.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow,” he said. He was smiling too.

She let herself out, like she always did. Like she’d been doing for years.      


End file.
